My Lady Greensleeves By FREDERIK POHL Illustrated by GAUGHAN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction February 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] This guard smelled trouble and it could be counted on to come--for a nose for trouble was one of the many talents bred here! I His name was Liam O'Leary and there was something stinking in his nostrils. It was the smell of trouble. He hadn't found what the trouble was yet, but he would. That was his business. He was a captain of guards in Estates-General Correctional Institution--better known to its inmates as the Jug--and if he hadn't been able to detect the scent of trouble brewing a cell-block away, he would never have survived to reach his captaincy. And her name, he saw, was Sue-Ann Bradley, Detainee No. WFA-656R. He frowned at the rap sheet, trying to figure out what got a girl like her into a place like this. And, what was more important, why she couldn't adjust herself to it, now that she was in. He demanded: "Why wouldn't you mop out your cell?" The girl lifted her head angrily and took a step forward. The block guard, Sodaro, growled warningly: "Watch it, auntie!" O'Leary shook his head. "Let her talk, Sodaro." It said in the _Civil Service Guide to Prison Administration_: "Detainees will be permitted to speak in their own behalf in disciplinary proceedings." And O'Leary was a man who lived by the book. She burst out: "I never got a chance! That old witch Mathias never told me I was supposed to mop up. She banged on the door and said, 'Slush up, sister!' And then, ten minutes later, she called the guards and told them I refused to mop." The block guard guffawed. "Wipe talk--that's what she was telling you to do. Cap'n, you know what's funny about this? This Bradley is--" "Shut up, Sodaro." * * * * * Captain O'leary put down his pencil and looked at the girl. She was attractive and young--not beyond hope, surely. Maybe she had got off to a wrong start, but the question was, would putting her in the disciplinary block help straighten her out? He rubbed his ear and looked past her at the line of prisoners on the rap detail, waiting for him to judge their cases. He said patiently: "Bradley, the rules are you have to mop out your cell. If you didn't understand what Mathias was talking about, you should have asked her. Now I'm warning you, the next time--"